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Mets protest ruling of hit by Bucs' McCutchen

Mets protest ruling of hit by Bucs' McCutchen

6/11/11: Andrew McCutchen brings home two runs on a double that gets past Daniel Murphy at third, giving the Pirates the lead in the third

By Jenifer Langosch
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MLB.com |

PITTSBURGH -- Major League Baseball has received a request by the Mets to review a scoring call from the Pirates' 3-2 win over New York on Saturday night at PNC Park.

According to MLB, the call the Mets are protesting came in the third inning, when the Pirates' Andrew McCutchen lined a ball off the leg of Mets third baseman Daniel Murphy. The ball caromed off Murphy and deep into foul territory, allowing plenty of time for runners from first and second to score.

Tony Krizmanich, the official scorer at PNC Park for the game, credited McCutchen with a double and two RBIs.

After the loss, both Murphy and Mets manager Terry Collins were adamant that Murphy should have been charged with an error. Ruling the play as such would have subtracted two of the three runs off R.A. Dickey's pitching line, but would have also taken away a pair of RBIs from McCutchen.

"It's an error," Collins said. "No disrespect to Dan Murphy at all. He's a good player, a very good player. He'll make that play the next 10 times it's hit at him... He'll make it every time. To give a guy two earned runs on that, it's unfair."

The Mets had 24 hours to ask MLB to consider reversing the call and will, if the club hasn't already, send video and any other details to the MLB offices as a part of that process. If an executive vice president in the office believes the scorer's call is "clearly erroneous," a review will be made by an entire committee.

The members of the committee, which always includes someone who played in the Majors, must unanimously agree that the call was wrong for it to be overturned. This process can take as little as a day and as long as a few weeks.

McCutchen was clearly surprised when informed of the Mets' decision to protest the call and provided his own argument as to why he felt the correct call was made.

"I feel like it was a base hit," McCutchen said. "He went down. He didn't field it right in front of him. He went to his side to try and field that. The ball was hit pretty well, so I feel that's why they gave me the hit.

"I don't know. I would be pretty upset if they changed that. It would take away a couple RBIs and take away a hit."